Al; Being a northern boy I don't get to see much Osage orange or Black
locust. Do they grow large enough to get good 2 pc. backs on the quarter?
Seems to me that during my gunsmithing days I heard of several US smiths
using the osage for fancy stocks, but I never ran across one.

KH
"alcarruth" wrote in message
...
There is only one thing I can add to what Kevin said: aside from the
hardness and density, the other important property of BRW from an
acoustic standpoint is it's low damping. A big reason it produces such
nice treble tones is that it doesn't 'eat' them with internal
friction. I know of at least two North American woods that have
properties that are quite close: Osage Orange, and Black Locust. Both
are common where they grow, can get quite large, and are hardly used
at all except for fence posts. We will be making good guitars of wood
for a long time to come.

Alan Carruth / Luthier